The Sound of the Trees (30 page)

The boy unfolded his legs and pushed down the bed and sat on the edge. How'd he find out it was me?

I don't rightly know. But I can guess the way you've carried on since you came to town might have helped in his figurin.

Well. I don't got the money he wants, and probably wouldn't give it to him if I did.

I can help with that.

No. I'll be alright.

No you won't.

The boy turned and regarded John Frank, whose hands were clenched tight and his face reddening.

Why's that, he said.

John Frank made to speak, then let off and rose again and crossed the room to where the dresser stood. He ran his fingers up and down the side of it. It's her, he said.

What's her?

Delilah. They picked her.

All of his breath seemed to go out of him yet on his face there was no surprise.

They're to hang her in the plaza, Frank continued with a forced steadiness. This Saturday coming.

What's today?

Monday.

Five days then.

Yeah, five days. I don't know what to say exceptin sorry.

The boy rose with a grunt and held his ribs and stood across the room from John Frank, looking out into the deserted alley. John Frank studied his face but it no longer gave change nor did it even reveal a sense of it.

Mayor said it was done by random lot, Frank went on. Says it's the only way to keep all types on their toes. Murder or misdemeanor, they're all the same, he said. No one is above the law. That kind of thing. That's what he said.

At random he said.

Yeah.

Don't the state got something to say about that? It don't quite fit the average American law, does it?

John Frank looked at the boy like he wasn't altogether sure who he was. Then he lowered his eyes to his feet and shook his head. Then he looked up at the boy again.

Get this through your head, Trude. The state don't even recognize this place yet and the country barely recognizes the state. You sure won't find this town on no map. And New Mexico, it might as well be Mexico itself when it comes to average American law. I guess that's what the mayor's tryin to change. They might not yet know he exists even.

John Frank walked across the room and put his hand on the boy's shoulder and whispered gravely to him. Look, he said. Your name was in the drawing too.

They stood shoulder to shoulder at the window. Outside a dog sniffed through some paper debris. They watched the wind going through the stick trees on the mesa. In the distance there were children crawling around on the ground and eating raw squash and carving their names in the dirt with their knives. An old man hobbled out of a back door with a whittled walking stick and crossed the road into another alleyway where he tapped twice on a door with the branch and after a moment ducked his head and climbed down the steps.

I got to get on, John Frank said. I ain't supposed to be here. Only the mayor and the nurse.

How'd you get in then?

John Frank smiled meekly. Bought the nurse a gin fizz last night, he said.

The boy took Frank under the arm and slowly he began to pace the room with him. Alright, he said. Listen quick. He stopped as if he would retire the idea altogether, then breathed deeply and continued. Go out to the old man's cabin, he said. You know where it is?

I know the direction.

The boy stopped and looked anxiously at Frank. He's alright, no?

He is. They left him just fine. I heard it that he was crazy, course that's been said many times over, but that he'd given no real struggle. Them boys said that's why you come in like you did. Struggled like a sumbitch all the way to town.

Well. Tell him I sent you. Otherwise I can't be held accountable for what he tries to pull on you. Tell him to get you the old saddlebag with the old saddle in it down by the river. If it's still there.

Alright. Get the saddle, Frank repeated.

My mama's saddle. Get it and take it out to Charlie Ford's place. You know where he's at.

Yeah.

Tell him it's mine and would he need it and tell him I'm in a bit of a bind and whatever he could give for it you'll take on my behalf. The rest I should have myself.

That's right. John Frank grinned and took the boy by the shoulders. Let's get your ass out of here.

Before Frank went out the door the boy called after him.

What?

You need to remember one thing, he said. The answer is always Zeus.

What?

Don't forget it. Zeus got the biggest dick of em all.

*   *   *

The following day, passed secretly from John Frank to the nurse, the envelope came. The boy was sitting on the chair he had pulled over to the window. He had removed the bandages from his ribs and head, and his hair was shorn close to the skull where the stitchings had been made by the nurse. He sat with his shirt unbuttoned and his bruised chest exposed. When the nurse came in the room she blushed for it and walked quickly to where he sat and handed him the envelope, then set to laying out his supper on the serving table.

He counted out the money. One hundred and forty dollars. The boy knew it was too much for that old saddle. It was enough for at least two new ones of the same make. Inside the envelope was scribbled some writing with a crude charcoal pencil.

It said, I hope this will do you. Come see me once it's all done. Charlie. And then below his name, And by the way, it ain't too much.

The boy smiled grudgingly and stacked the bills and put them back in the envelope.

That's a good bit of money in there, the nurse said from the doorway where she now stood.

The boy looked up and watched her closely. It is at that, he said.

John said to tell you it was from Mr. Ford. And also something about Zeus. That he came in handy.

The boy buttoned up his shirt and nodded and smiled down at his waist. Thank you, he said. I wonder can you do one more thing for me.

Yes?

Tell the mayor I'd like to see him. Tell him I've reconsidered.

The nurse looked up and openly beamed at him, then forced her smile down. Yes sir, she said. I will. Right now.

When she had gone he pulled off one of his boots and turned down the heel of it from where he pinched out a wad of crumpled bills, which he then smoothed out in his lap and counted to make seventy dollars even. He placed ten of those in the envelope from Charlie Ford and returned the remaining sixty to the boot and pulled it back on his foot and sat and waited for them to come.

It was just nightfall when the nurse called on him and found him still sitting where he had been in the morning. He followed her down the hallway without shackles or chains of any kind. One of the Ralston brothers stood outside the mayor's office with his arms crossed at his chest. He did not look at the boy but merely pushed open the door and let him by.

He heard the mayor's boots before he saw his face. The mayor turned slowly in his chair and motioned to the guard for the door to be closed. He shifted his spectacles on his nose and smiled casually at the boy.

Please, he said in his tremorless voice. Sit down.

The boy sat.

You are looking well. The mayor regarded him with a genuine look. Quite well, he said.

I'm in need of my hat.

Your hat?

Yeah. My hat.

I do not have such a hat, I am afraid. Perhaps it was left behind. After the …

The mayor searched for the words.

After the scuffle. He smiled again and more crookedly at the boy. But if you have brought what is necessary, you can find it yourself. He made a flourish with his hands. Otherwise I can have someone bring it to you, he said. Here.

I have it, the boy said.

The mayor raised a single eyebrow and tugged on his beard. Do you, he said.

The boy produced the envelope from his pocket and placed it on the desk. He pushed it across to the mayor's hands. With his eyes unrooted from the boy's face the mayor gradually leaned forward and took up the envelope, then turned his chair away. When he turned back he was smiling robustly.

This is one hundred and fifty dollars. Fifty short of what has been asked of you.

It's all I got. If you want I can pay the rest later.

No, no. You see, you cannot work for me anymore. He made a pointing gesture at the desk. You cannot stay here anymore.

So I'll be gone. You want that so much, ain't it worth fifty dollars to you?

The mayor stood and walked across the room. He went by one of the dark wood shelves that was lit up brightly by the candelabra beside it and picked up one of the glass train engines. He turned it over in his hand and studied it deliberately. He closed his fingers around it and set it down again. It is agreed then, he said. You may leave at your leisure. You will gather up your things and go far away from here.

The boy nodded. He looked across the room at the mayor with his purple eye upon him. How much you figure for the girl, he said.

The mayor's brow creased in distaste and he walked to the back of the boy's chair and put his hands on it.

You have heard, then, about the girl.

The boy stayed silent. He looked straight ahead at the desk.

What exactly is the business you have with her?

It ain't any business.

Ah, the mayor said, touching the rims of his glasses, but it is. I believe that you are fond of her. I believe you would like very much to see her live. She is, after all, quite pretty for a negress.

Maybe it's that I don't want to see anyone die.

The mayor went to the drink cart which stood beneath the raised blinds and poured a thumbnail of whiskey and brought it to his lips.

Maybe, he said. But sometimes it is necessary. She is not an innocent, you see. None of them were. Including you. She was unlucky, yes. But I do not think of it entirely as death. You must learn to understand this. That it is an action. A necessary act in which something is given for the greater well-being.

The mayor sipped from beneath his heavy beard and adjusted his glasses again and set the tumbler down and folded his hands behind his back.

It is like trading a ripe apple for a rotting one, he said. When the freshly fallen apple is picked up and the old one is crushed beneath the heel, there is a new order. A new order is created by that. The old worm-ridden apple is forgotten, and the other is brought to the mouth where it revitalizes that which the old apple could not.

The boy's eyes quickened and he pushed back the chair violently.

It was her all along, he said, standing now and facing the mayor. I think it was always going to be her. All you're sayin is she'll be the one least missed. That she's chosen to show death. Not to show lost life, cause no one cares about her life. But death's enough to put fear in the heart. Death's all you need. It ain't life gone out, it's just the goddamn picture. It's the picture of death you want.

The mayor took up the whiskey glass again and rolled the rim around his lips.

I am not the great changer, he said calmly. I am not the one who bleeds life and death into the earth. A man is given one life and one life only. It is as substantial as a tree or bush or doe. It comes and is gone. A man lives and learns or does not learn and then is gone. Your life is not the blessed possession you would like to imagine. I am seeking order, he said more sharply. He set the tumbler down again. As perhaps you are, though you cannot see it. The girl's life does not change things in the vast order of the world, it only changes things here. It makes order here. That is all we can do. A small bit of order amidst the outstanding chaos. It is simply an example, you are right in that. It is simply what must be done in a world where everything that is done must be.

The mayor sat behind the desk again and crossed his legs. He held his hands for the boy to sit as well but he would not.

I know how you see things, the mayor went on. Once I saw them much in the same way. Perhaps to a lesser degree, but the same. I see how the land is inside you and how you imagine it goes with you in a way you understand. And you expect the same from the people who inhabit this land. All things one great presence sweeping through time on the merits of its own simplicity. As if time will not disturb it if you wish it not to. As if the changes around you were unwound from your own hand. And perhaps what exhausts you most and what you clearly do not understand is the fact that underneath, where you are, everything is strong and solid and peerless, yet on the surface, where the real world resides, everything is subject to flux. Everything is in turmoil.

The mayor removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He held the spectacles up to the candlelight, then put them on again and leaned across the desk.

Because of this you are like a desert of sadness, he said. No one comes to you to agree with your notions of right and wrong. You have only nature's laws. Absolute laws that are neither spoken nor attainable by words. Understand this. These are not the laws that apply here. These are the ones as children we may have hoped the world is obedient to, but they are never in case the true ones. In truth they are not of this world. They are God's illusions cast down for some greater purpose we cannot fathom, nor can we accomplish. I do not think this distinction is clear in your mind. And because of it you are like a desert of sadness. No one goes to the desert. No one goes to kneel and speak words of comfort. No one goes to mourn or pray for it. And do you know why this is? It is because the desert is no place, just as the workings by which you wish to see the world turn are in fact no workings at all. They are that which is imagined. They are dream, and no more.

The mayor tipped his head and looked at the boy over his spectacles. He seemed pleased by his words. The boy turned his eyes away. For a long while they remained silent. The mayor watched the boy who was leaning against the bookshelves.

It's all bullshit, the boy finally said. He straightened himself from the shelving. I ain't pretending to be like you and I ain't tryin to find your good side. I just want the truth. Great new town of the West ought to begin with that. My mother gone and now my father too, and never did I see the perfect law in that.